


by blood

by phenomenology



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Beauyasha if you squint, Blood, Character Death, Gen, Injury, Major Character Injury, Team as Family, empire siblings have my entire heart, for like three paragraphs and it isn't gruesome i promise, just kind of tagging to be safe, the found family trope strikes again
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-21
Updated: 2020-01-21
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:20:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22340959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phenomenology/pseuds/phenomenology
Summary: Nott was crouched at Caleb’s head, patting his cheek carefully so as not to catch him with her nails. He was in a limp heap, bloodied and far too still for Beau’s liking. She was numb for a moment, breath stuck, vision spinning, tunneling inward towards her human compatriot, and then her breath left her all at once in a piercing cry of, “CALEB!”
Relationships: Beauregard Lionett & Caleb Widogast, The Mighty Nein & Caleb Widogast
Comments: 15
Kudos: 269





	by blood

Beau hit the ground with a thud, having enough presence of mind left through the white hot blinding pulse of _pain, pain, pain_ to register someone yelling her name nearby.

The voice was deep, and that didn’t exactly narrow down who could be shouting for her, because a good number of their party had fairly deep tones. Either way, she couldn’t respond. The monk could feel herself floating on the edges of unconsciousness, probably only still semi-aware out of sheer spite. There was a crackling sound that might or might not have been Beau’s hearing going static for a moment before fading again.

She had been standing in front of Caleb, offering a barrier for him as he went to work on a spell. Nott had been adjacent to her, getting in some critical damage while Beau held the enemy’s attention. Yasha had been on Beau’s left somewhere further off with Fjord and Jester. Caduceus wasn’t directly in the fray last time Beau had checked, his distinctive flash of magic sparking a decent way from the enemies but still dealing damage as he kept himself as unscathed as possible.

Beau tried to push herself somewhat upright, blinking hard against a renewed surge of blinding pain. She couldn’t leave her friends to fight without her. She was the one who took hits, deflected blows, darted through the melee to deal damage and assist where she was needed. Beau had to protect them.

She had to get _up_.

Vision spinning, somewhat doubled, Beau managed to lever herself upright enough to catch sight of Nott getting in a decent shot with her crossbow, taking out the enemy lumbering in Beau’s direction. The little goblin flashed Beau a broad grin full of sharp teeth and Beau waved in acknowledgement. Nott took this as a sign that the monk was okay, because she scampered off towards the others, in the process of taking down their last enemy.

Heaving for breath, Beau lowered her upper body back down to the matted, messy grass beneath her and felt her trembling arms give out just as her torso was an inch away from rest. Wheezing at the slight thud, Beau let her eyes shut and groaned softly against the disoriented sensation of spinning darkness. She could feel her side oozing blood from the massive gash there splitting her skin. Beau was pretty sure that wound had landed her with a broken rib or two if the pain and wheezing were anything to go by.

Wondering idly if any of her friends had ended up as bruised and beaten as her, Beau fiercely hoped not and struggled again to remain awake. It wasn’t like she would be able to help or heal them if they were, but she needed to know. Wheezing as she tried to make her arms move, Beau jolted slightly when she felt frantic hands carefully rolling her onto her back, making her head spin that much more. She groaned low and pained in her throat and there was a large, gentle hand against her hair, soothing.

Warmth flowed through her torso, emanating from two hands pressed with careful caution against her clavicle and sternum. It was a sensation she had never quite gotten used to, even after all this time; of rushing heat and then the unsettling feeling of muscles and sinew and skin carefully stitching back together. With a strained exhale, Beau found some strength flowing back into her and she managed to blink her eyes open and focus with less blurred vision this time.

Yasha’s face hovered upside down above Beau, making her realize that her head was pillowed carefully against the Aasimar’s legs. Beau watched as lines of concern smoothed out visibly against Yasha’s skin as her mismatched eyes took in the sight of Beau’s coherence. Jester’s horns and bright grin popped into her field of view next, eyes sparkling with relief.

“’Sup?” Beau croaked, earning a fond eye roll from both her visible friends. They helped her to sit up, Beau wincing only slightly at the mild strain and pull leftover from all the hits she had taken. Yasha’s shoulder was behind her back, keeping the exhausted monk upright as Jester turned to check on Nott. At her feet, Beau spotted Caduceus finishing up a quick healing spell on Fjord’s shoulder, finishing it off with a careful pat and a serene smile.

Breathing out a careful sigh of relief at seeing her friends whole and well, she took a quick headcount and the relief immediately dissipated with a stab of realization.

“Caleb,” Beau croaked when Yasha placed a worried hand on the monk’s arm at the sudden tension in her shoulders. “Where’s Caleb?”

The wizard was usually fairly silent after battles, taking the brief downtime in the post rush of adrenaline to breathe and collect himself. He and Beau usually sat down somewhere together to take stock of their wounds and just ache, so his absence was a sour note in what Beau had thought was the relief of surviving another battle. She kicked herself quietly for not noticing earlier, despite being on the verge of blacking out.

Nott’s expression immediately morphed into something frantic and terrified, Fjord and Caduceus instantly on their feet and turning ‘round and ‘round, eyes scanning in the fading daylight for their wizard. Beau’s panic increased tenfold at the lack of response to her question.

“Caleb?” she called as loudly as her voice would allow. “Caleb! C’mon man, answer me!”

Struggling upright from her reclined position against Yasha’s shoulder, Beau ignored how lightheaded she suddenly was and continued to push to her feet. Yasha’s fretful hands were at her shoulders, keeping Beau upright despite her trembling knees. Jester was suddenly in front of her, face scolding even as her brow furrowed with worry for Caleb.

“Beau, careful! You’re not fully healed yet, you might re-open wounds.”

“That doesn’t matter,” Beau insisted sharply, feeling guilty as Jester frowned unhappily at the tone. “We need to find Caleb. _Now_.”

The last she had seen him, he had been standing not far behind her as she protected him from the enemy while he was focused on casting a spell. When she had gone down, Beau had lost track of him. She assumed he had finished the spell and continued to fight, but he was the most vulnerable out of all of them and without Beau there to protect him, it was likely that Caleb could have taken a serious hit. Guilt was fierce and burning in her chest as she all but leaned into Yasha to stay upright, gaze darting fretfully around them to try and find Caleb. Beau fumbled for her goggles when she realized that it was getting too dark for her to see and peered desperately through the lenses.

“Caleb!” Nott’s shrill cry echoed over the din of the rest of their friends calling for the wizard, drawing gazes her way. Yasha had to help Beau turn around, Nott’s voice coming from behind them. She hadn’t even thought to look behind them, all of them fanning out and forward from the point of origin that was Beau.

Twisting around, before Yasha had even reoriented them, ignoring the tug and sting of unhealed wounds, Beau felt her breath catch in her throat. Nott was crouched at Caleb’s head, patting his cheek carefully so as not to catch him with her nails. He was in a limp heap, bloodied and far too still for Beau’s liking. She was numb for a moment, breath stuck, vision spinning, tunneling inward towards her human compatriot, and then her breath left her all at once in a piercing cry of, “CALEB!”

She was peripherally aware of Yasha and Jester flinching with shock at the volume, at the broken voice that left her. Beau _never_ sounded this vulnerable.

Shoving Yasha’s hands off of her, Beau all but tumbled to the ground at the loss of support but then she was scrambling – hands and knees for a moment – and moving at a painful stumble towards Caleb. Collapsing beside him, eyes stinging and head pounding, she reached out (oh, her fingers were shaking) and grabbed a fistful of Caleb’s coat at his shoulder. She gave him a shake – gentle, so gentle because he was so soft – and called his name through the wobble in her voice.

“Caleb…come on. Open your eyes, man.”

Her eyes were fixated solely on his face, on the blood streaked across his cheeks and leaking sluggishly from somewhere above his hair line. His lips were slack and parted ever so slightly, eyes stubbornly shut. Beau refused to believe that he could ever be this still naturally. This had to be a joke.

Two gloved fingers caught Beau’s attention in her peripheral and she started slightly, looking to find Caduceus’ grim expression staring down at Caleb as he pressed his fingers near Caleb’s jugular. The cleric waited for a few silent, strained seconds before pulling back. His expression darkened in a way Beau had never witnessed before and she choked on a harsh, crushing sob.

“No,” Beau begged. “No, he can’t—you can _save_ him, can’t you?”

“I don’t—” Caduceus started to say, only to be cut off by Jester shoving her way through them to Caleb’s side. Her eyes were frantic, tinged with tears that were now streaking down her cheeks. She had a diamond clutched in one hand, sparkling just barely in the fading daylight.

“I can try,” she said breathlessly. “We don’t know how long he’s been…so it might not work. But I can try.” Jester’s voice warbled and faltered, avoiding saying _dead_ , but she immediately started casting the spell after she finished speaking.

Caduceus put a gentle hand on Nott’s shoulder, guiding the fretful goblin a few paces back, Fjord following after a moment, the half-orc keeping his eyes trained on Caleb’s face. Beau’s fingers were still twisted into the purple fabric of Caleb’s coat, and she felt Yasha’s large hand on her arm, coaxing her to let go, to give Jester the space she needed to cast. But Beau tried to shrug off Yasha’s touch, a choked sob leaving her quite unprompted. She couldn’t leave his side.

“Beau,” Yasha’s quiet voice was soft, understanding. The raw vulnerability underlying the call of her name was enough to draw her eyes away from Caleb. She found Yasha’s mismatched eyes and stuck fast, clinging to the stability she found there.

“It will be okay.”

Beau did not believe her, but she wanted to so badly that she forced her fingers to loosen their hold on Caleb and was compliant as Yasha guided Beau to her feet. Leaning heavily against the Aasimar as they retreated a few steps away, Beau watched Jester work with weary desperation.

She _needed_ Caleb to be okay.

Beau hadn’t realized until very recently how much she had come to rely on and expect Caleb to be there for her. They were the human pair of their misfit group; they were the library team, the bastard children of the Empire. He was the older brother she had never had – never knew she needed. She could not lose him now, not after everything they had been through and not with everything they had left to do.

Beau did not believe in religion, she barely acknowledged the gods, but now, watching Jester cast her magic over Caleb’s limp form, she begged to Ioun in her mind.

_Just let him live._

In all reality, the spell only took a few seconds to cast, but to Beau it felt like hours. She watched the glow of the diamond disintegrating, turning to a colorful powder and spreading Jester’s magic to fade and settle over Caleb – and he didn’t stir. His chest remained still, and his eyes stayed shut. Jester clapped her hands over her mouth and hunched over Caleb with a mournful keening sound.

Beau stared for a prolonged second before her knees gave out and she pitched sideways into Yasha. The taller woman had tears on her cheeks, smearing her war paint, but she managed to hold Beau upright in the end. Gathering the monk against her, holding her in a semi-embrace, Yasha’s chest shuddered against Beau’s shoulder with silent sobs. Beau was distinctly unaware of her surroundings, feeling entirely numb and detached, tunnel vision focused entirely on Caleb.

That was why, when he took a single, shuddering breath, Beau was the first to spot it. Feeling snapped back into her limbs so abruptly it left her feeling dizzy, breathless. But she shoved weakly against Yasha’s arms as a strangled noise left Beau’s throat. Yasha, likely thinking Beau was going to bolt, fought to keep a hold on the monk, her sobs still trembling within her chest.

“No,” Beau gasped. “Caleb, _Caleb_ —” she managed to free an arm from Yasha’s hold and reached out for him, every wound on her skin stinging fiercely as she struggled.

Jester looked up at her frantic tone and caught sight of the wizard’s fluttering eyelids, his shallow breaths lifting his chest. The cleric let out a delighted, surprised cry and moved to cup Caleb’s cheeks, her fingertips glowing with more healing magic to draw him further back from the edge of death.

Fjord and Caduceus and Nott scurried forward, eyes wide with hopeful joy as Caduceus spent a spell on aiding Jester’s healing process. Yasha caught on to the shift in mood and readily helped Beau the few steps forward to Caleb. Her steady hands (they were trembling against Beau but her grip was sure) guided Beau to the ground with as little jostling as possible and the monk was quick to latch onto Caleb’s hand.

Nott was whispering reassurances to Caleb as she pet his hair, her voice and hands shaking but her yellow eyes staunchly relieved. The wizard was still very much dazed and aching, but his eyes were looking up fondly at Nott with exhaustion etched into every line of his features. Beau felt the worry in her chest unwind a little further when his bony fingers squeezed tighter around her hand.

Caduceus and Jester helped Caleb to sit up a minute later, the worst of his wounds healed, and let Fjord slip in behind the wizard to make sure he stayed upright. None of them wanted to stand up yet, far too shaken to consider leaving the tiny sphere of joy, relief, comfort that they had created. Nott was practically clinging to Caleb’s arm as she quietly followed the conversation between Fjord, Jester, and Caduceus.

Beau had yet to take her eyes off Caleb, watching his chest rise and fall more evenly, watching his eyes move around the group (open and bright and _alive_ ). Eventually, those blue irises found Beau’s own and the second they made eye contact, she was surging forward to grab hold of the lapels of his coat in her fists.

He didn’t look at all startled by her slightly rough treatment, and Beau hated and loved that someone knew her well enough to understand. Caleb – a man so abused and tortured – didn’t even flinch at Beau’s movements. He simply blinked slowly at her, waiting, reminding Beau far too much of his feline familiar.

Feeling the telltale sting of tears in her eyes, Beau tugged Caleb against her a little more harshly than strictly necessary, and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. The hug was a fierce, protective reassurance and Caleb leaned into it willingly. He didn’t hesitate as much as he used to before wrapping his own arms around Beau – one hand firmly between her shoulder blades and the other secured around her back.

“Thank you,” Beau choked out into the fabric at Caleb’s shoulder. She wasn’t sure if she was thanking Ioun for her earlier pleas, or Caleb for not leaving her alone.

Maybe it was both.

“You’re so stupid, you know that? A fuckin’ idiot. You’re not supposed to get hit, that’s my job. Promise me you won’t die again.”

It was a fruitless thing to ask of him. They all almost died on a regular basis, and try as the clerics might to stay stocked with diamonds, Beau was well aware that the spell didn’t always work. But she felt like a child – scared and desperate for reassurance. Asking for an impossible promise so that she might be able to sleep at night. Caleb was a realistic and logical man, and he was probably going to quietly remind her that this was an unrealistic request, one he could not grant because he could not fulfill it.

“I was trying to protect you while you were down,” he said softly, accent thick against her shoulder as he tightened the hug a little more. “But _ja_ , I will do my best.”

Beau burst into messy tears and pressed her face against his shoulder so hard she could barely breathe. Caleb just held her even closer and Beau took solace in the press of his arms on her back.

After crying her eyes out for a good few minutes, she heard Caleb murmur something over her shoulder and before she could even lift her head, Yasha’s warm hands were on her shoulders and drawing her carefully away from Caleb. Scrabbling with sudden panic to keep a hold on the wizard, a noise of frantic protest escaping her where words failed, Beau only stilled when Caleb’s hands rested against her shoulders.

“I need to put up the hut,” he explained softly, looking Beau directly in the eyes. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Searching Caleb’s face for any hint of deception, Beau found none and nodded jerkily, acknowledging. She reluctantly released his coat from her death grip and let Yasha hold her. Beau wasn’t usually big on physical contact beyond casual touch every now and then (though she craved to be treated like something precious), so being handled with such care was disorienting. Deciding to just soak up what she could take before the morning inevitably stole this all away, Beau turned her face into the cloak at Yasha’s shoulder and ignored everyone’s worry for her.

She knew she was acting vulnerable, presenting a side of herself never before exposed to these friends she now considered family. Avoiding their eyes meant avoiding conversation about it, and come morning the topic would be spirited away alongside this prolonged physical contact.

Roughly a minute later, Beau already starting to drift off with the exhaustion of battle now weighing heavily on her, Yasha shifted the monk around so they could lie down. There was quiet rustling as the rest of the party went about setting up their bedrolls and adjusting position so they could puzzle together inside Caleb’s tiny bubble. Blinking blearily around as she was carefully guided onto the ground (her bedroll somehow already spread out), Beau found Caleb lying down beside her. Reaching for him, Caleb – in a rare display of physical affection – opened his arms to Beau and let her tuck herself against his side and pillow her head on his shoulder. His arm was secure around her shoulders, holding her close and encasing her in warmth.

Nott’s head poked up from Caleb’s other side, glancing over at Beau before reaching out to carefully pat the monk’s arm where it was thrown over Caleb’s stomach. Beau offered her a sleepy smile of gratitude as Nott settled down on Caleb’s other side.

In her peripheral, Beau could see Jester curled up behind Nott, the tiefling’s head resting against Caduceus’ stomach where he was stretched out above all their heads. Fjord and Yasha’s voices were hushed behind Beau’s back, the monk only catching snippets of conversation concerning Fjord taking first watch and Yasha taking the one after.

She was halfway to sleep when Yasha’s arm curled around Beau’s waist tentatively, the Aasimar pressing just slightly into Beau’s back. Warm and content, sandwiched comfortably between her family, Beau dropped quickly off to dreamless sleep. She wasn’t sure what the morning would bring (she knew what she hoped awaited her with the sunrise), but she knew she had never felt so reassured dropping into slumber before.

**Author's Note:**

> episode 91 had me literally rolling in the found family trope feels and this spawned from that for no reason. i hope you enjoyed it <3 the empire siblings have my ENTIRE heart


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